18. To the Monks of Bec

To his dearly-beloved Lord, Prior Baldric, and the other servants of God living in the monastery of Bec; brother Anselm, their servant and fellow-servant: may you ever be ruled by the divine counsel, and protected by the divine help.

Although the divine will separates me from you in body, not without deep and pious grief to my heart, yet I pray God that the affection which He gave and wherewith my soul embraces you in its secret recesses, may continue; through which, God approving, I shall always be your servant; since I shall ever, so far as God shall give me the power, be devoted to your interests. For though that affection be so great that often when I reflect on our separation, so against our will and still so incomplete, my heart forthwith swells and is agitated with an internal tempest as the sea with winds, and my eyes rain down tears, yet is it sweeter to me to bear all that through my love than to detach myself therefrom. For God knows, in whose sight I speak according to my conscience, that I more loved you in God and for your own sake, and to be myself with you: that you to me were more than the distinction, or power, or earthly possessions which I had on your account Wherefore I am more distressed by your sadness at whatever need (if any such there be) which you may feel of me, than consoled by any earthly exaltation or opulence. Even now in this very address which I am making to you by dictation, tears which my eyes cannot restrain are my witnesses, as also sobs bursting from my throat and choking it up, as they overflow from the groaning of my heart, interrupting the writer by delaying the words from my mouth. However, there are, as I hear, some (but who they may To the Monks of Bec. 1 4 1 be, God knoweth) who either out of malice pretend, or out of mistake suspect, or are impelled by undiscerning grief to say, that I was attracted to the archbishopric by depraved avarice rather than compelled to accept it by religious necessity. These I know not how to convince of the position of my conscience in this matter, if my life and conversation does not satisfy them. For I have already so lived for thirty-three years in the monastic habit (that is, three without office, fifteen as prior, the same number of years as abbot), and that all good people who knew me loved me, not from any efforts of mine but by God's grace, and those the most who knew me intimately and familiarly; nor did any one perceive in me any action to make them think I delighted in power. What then shall I do? How shall I repel and extinguish this false and hateful suspicion, lest it injure by lessening their charity the souls of those who loved me for God's sake; or of those to whom any advice or example of my littleness may have been useful, by persuading them that I am worse than I am; or even of these and others who have not known me and will hear this, by setting before them an evil example! Thou, God, who knowest all things! I do not justify myself according to the test of Thy strict judgment, since that great Apostle, who could say, "I know nothing of myself," when he had said this, added: "Yet am I not hereby justified, but he that judgeth me is the Lord." And that honest and upright man, fearing God and avoiding evil, to whom, as Thou didst Thyself testify, there was none like upon earth, said, "I am afraid of all my works: "but according as my soul understands its own conscience do I declare it before Thee, that all who shall read or hear this my letter, may know it as witnessed by Thee, and believe it. Thou, Lord, seest, and be Thou my witness, that so far as my conscience tells me, I know not why the love of any thing which Thy servant, a scorner of the world, ought to despise, should attract or bind me to the acceptance of the archbishopric to which I was dragged, being borne suddenly away; and also, that did obedience and chanty, both which on account of Thee I would guard so far as Thou hast given them, allow it, I would rather choose to serve and live as a monk, under a superior, and receive from him spiritual advice and bodily neces saries, than to rule or guide other men, whether as to their souls' direction or their bodily support; or to possess earthly riches.

Thou seest, and be Thou my witness, that, so far as my conscience tells me, I know not how I could free myself from that design of those who elected me; and that Thy fear and love and the obedience which I owe to Thee and to Thy Church, compel me, bind me, so that I may not dare obstinately to contradict their religious entreaties and the great desire they manifest to me. Lord, if my conscience be deceiving me, show me myself and correct me, and "make Thy way plain before my face." And whether it please Thee, that what has been by men begun in this my election shall be completed, or not carried out, "teach me Thy way, and I will walk in Thy truth." Lord, Thou seest, as I said, my conscience: be Thou witness for me to those who may suspect otherwise of me; and make it plain to them; that they injure not their own or others' souls by judging my spirit wrongly. Now, dearly loved brethren, you have heard what my conscience tells me as to my desire for or contempt of the archbishopric. But if I knowingly lie to God, I know not to whom I should tell the truth. Should anyone henceforth, in contradiction to what I have said on this matter and called God to witness, try openly or secretly to give any To the Monks of Bec. 143 other a bad opinion of me, I think that God will be on my side against him, and will answer him for me; but I shall console myself with the witness of God. But I am very sure that however this false suspicion shall injure the soul of any, the authors of it, should there be more than one, will have the sin upon their souls, and whether there be one or many, it will lie most on him who shall have been the chief originator. Here, how ever, I will briefly answer those arguments with which some of you think I might reasonably have resisted the aforesaid election. They say: "When he was obliged to become abbot, he became our servant in the name of the Lord." What do they mean by this? They surely do not think that I swore servitude to you in the Lord's name? for I certainly did no such thing. Is that which the Lord said: "If ye shall ask anything in My Name," to be understood as if He had said, "If ye had sworn to the Father, asking anything in My Name"? or when we say: "Our help is in the Name of the Lord," or as often as we do or say anything in the name of the Lord, do we each time swear by the name of the Lord? By no means: but however that may be understood, is now nothing to me; but what I then said "in the name of the Lord," I understood and understand as in the Lord, that is, in God. What is done in God, is done according to God, that is, rightly. When, therefore, I gave myself to be your servant in the Lord's name, I gave myself to you as a servant, so far as I could according to the Lord's will. Judge ye now whether in this way I refuse, or whether I could while following God refuse to accept His disposal of me, to which whether I willed it or not I was rightly subject; or the obedience to which I had wholly surrendered myself. For when I professed myself a monk, I yielded up myself, so that thenceforward I could not be my own, that is, I could not live according to my own will, but according to obedience; now true obedience is either to God, or to the Church of God and those who are placed highest below God. This obedience, then, I neither abjured, nor yielded up; but rather fulfilled it as I said, "in the name of the Lord." Learn then what it was that I then gave you. This only: that I could not at my own will withdraw myself from your service, nor seek to be withdrawn from it, unless compelled thereto by that guidance and obedience, to which I was first subject by the ordinance of God. But as to what I did: had I done otherwise than as I said, of a verity you would not be monks, were you to exact of me aught that I had promised you, when it was contrary to God's will. Never before you had allowed me to be promoted to the archbishopric, did I explain to anyone this surrender of myself, but I used to object it as an insuperable obstacle, lest I should be promoted; until I per ceived that those who wished to remove me persisted with such constancy in their determination as not to under stand that anything could be in the way, and also that they asserted that on no account either would or should they desist from what they had begun. Some also say that I had been given to you according to God; and that from those over whom I was lawfully placed I cannot rightly allow myself to be removed, nor ought they to yield me up. St Martin was an abbot according to the will of God, and yet he was taken away from his monks and clergy, and placed over monks and laymen and women. I think that Peter the Apostle sat in the episcopal chair at Antioch by God's appointment; and yet no one says that he did wrong when, deserting it, he went to Rome to seek a larger harvest. Can we therefore say that these did not love their first disciples, or that they afterwards loved them less? or To the Monks of Bec. 145 that God scorned and deserted them because they had, as to bodily presence, deserted those others? This, at any rate, brethren, cannot be asserted. I compare not myself to them in greatness; but I am not on that account to be condemned if God doth with me some what as He did with them. Perchance someone may say: "Thou art not a man whom so great a charge befits." This is exactly what I assert with heart and mouth concerning myself. Then they say: "Whatever thou art, we want thee; we do not release thee." Some again call to mind that I used to say that I was unwilling to live except with you, and that I would never have any other charge but that of Bec. But I used to say this according to my own will and inclination and with the idea of trusting in my own defence and reply should I be called to another charge. But what, if God orders that I shall even live for, and serve, others? Ought I rebelliously to resist? Both I and you belong more to God than I to you, and you to me. The prince of the apostles said to the Lord: "Thou shalt never wash my feet." That was his will. But what said the Lord? "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me." And what Peter? "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." But God did not condemn him because he changed his own purpose for the divine purpose; rather He humbled Himself at Peter's feet. I had reckoned on my strength and cleverness to defend myself with; but God was stronger and more able than me, and therefore my idea came to nothing. Some one may perhaps say I have spoken foolishly, as if justifying myself and proving myself worthy of the archbishopric; but my false slanderers have constrained me lest they should infect you or some one else with the poison of their untruth: nor do I aim at proving myself worthy of the archbishopric, but at clearing myself of a falsely imputed crime. But as to these things of which I have so far spoken, let this now suffice. I will however add some what for your consolation.

Thus, I beg of you, my much-loved brethren, not to be grieved above measure at my absence. Truly your sadness is mine, and your consolation is mine also. Let not your hope be in man, but in God, since if I have been of any use to you, it was not of myself, but of Him. Many of you, and perhaps all, came to Bec because of me; but none of you became a monk because of me; nor from hope of reward from me did you devote yourselves to God; from Him to whom you gave all you had, expect all you need. "Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall nourish you." Turn all your anxiety towards serving Him: and He will take all care for your support. For myself, I pray that you will not love me the less, because God doth His will with me: and that I may not for this be utterly lost, if I have sometimes wished to do your will, because I neither dare, nor ought to, nor can, resist God, nor do I see so far how I could withdraw myself from the Church of the English, except by resisting God. Let it be plain that you have not loved me for yourselves alone, but also for God, and myself. Pray for me, that whatever may become of me, may by the grace of God be brought to a good end. From this time forth, give up looking upon me as your abbot; but know me to be your loving friend and most anxious for you so long as I live, God keeping me firm in those feelings which He gave me concerning you. But I will never give up the power of binding and loosing, and of advising you, which I had over you, so long as the abbot who shall succeed me, and you who will be under him, shall yield it to me: I can hardly say it for weeping. To our Lord Jesus To the Monks of Bec. 147 Christ and His righteous mother Mary, and to blessed Peter, to whom He commended His sheep, and to Saint Benedict (according to whose rule you professed obedience): and to the other saints of God I commend you, most dearly-loved brothers mine, and by their merits and intercessions may He who redeemed you be your abbot, your guardian: may He cause you after this life to live in His kingdom. There may His goodness grant me to behold you, and with you to rejoice eternally, who is God blessed for ever. Amen. Many among you, whom I used to cherish with such sweet and familiar affection that to each one it might seem as if I could have loved none other so much, wonder why I do not write to each singly some remembrance of our affection. But they must know that not my forgetfulness, but their number, occasions this. And perhaps I shall do so when it shall be more convenient, and if not to all, at least to some. At present I will say only this to them: that they should remember I loved them for nothing else but because they loved God and their own souls. They are my witnesses that I always claim this from them and from you all; for this I implore, to this exhort, this advise: let them do this, and thus will they ever keep inviolate my love for them. Hasten to raise up an abbot for yourselves, for this is needful for you. Farewell. Show this letter of mine to whomsoever you can, to clear me from those false suspicions of me; and chiefly to the reverend lords and my fathers who of His grace for God's sake, bishops, and abbots, loved me; concerning whom it hurts me most if they are deceived into suspecting there is anything bad and wrong in me. For I am unwilling to lose their affection on any account, but desire always by honouring and loving them to deserve and retain it.